Many Men (Wish Death)

"Many Men (Wish Death)" is a song by American rapper 50 Cent from his debut album Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2003). The song was produced by Darrell "Digga" Branch, and Luis Resto. Despite the song charting and having a music video, it was only released as a promotional single.

Music video
The video was directed by Jessy Tererro and produced by Jill Hardin and Darrell "Digga" Branch. The song's music video is about 50 Cent's shooting from May 24, 2000, when he was shot 9 times in Queens, New York. Mekhi Phifer appears in the video as 50's hitman. Adam Rodriguez and Rory Cochrane, both stars of CSI: Miami at the time of production, appear as detectives. Gabriel Casseus appears as a person who is allied with the person that shoots 50 Cent. Tommy Lister appears as one of 50 Cent's associates. G-Unit members Lloyd Banks and Young Buck make cameo appearances.

The music video on YouTube has received over 500 million views as of March 2024.

Commercial performance
The song peaked at number 11 on the US Bubbling Under R&B/Hip-Hop Singles. On June 14, 2006, "Many Men (Wish Death)" was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for selling 500,000 copies in the United States of America. On January 19, 2023, it was certified three times platinum by the RIAA, indicating 3 million copies sold.

Legacy
American rapper Pop Smoke interpolated the song on his 2020 track, "Got It on Me", and producer Metro Boomin sampled the song on his and 21 Savage's 2020 track "Many Men".

Vietnamese-American writer Ocean Vuong repeatedly references the song in his novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. As Vuong explained in an interview, "50 Cent’s song was ubiquitous in the early aughts, where so much of this book takes place. It also marked the last era of gangsta rap, whose cultural framework provided men and boys a means of performing masculinity while also reducing it to erroneous tropes of misogyny and violence."

Following the 2024 attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the track resurged in popularity, spreading through memes and reaching the top 10 on US iTunes sales. On the night of the attempted assassination, 50 Cent performed the song in front of an image of the Get Rich or Die Tryin' album cover with Trump’s face edited over 50 Cent’s own.